Automatic vehicle trials set for Finnish roads

The Finnish Transport Safety Agency Trafi will launch a pilot of automatic cars in Finland later this summer. The agency has granted permits to test the driverless vehicles on Finnish roads.

Image: CityMobil2

Transport safety agency Trafi has granted a handful of permits to three research and development institutions to test automatic cars in Finland.

The agency handed over permits to Helsinki’s Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and the state-owned R&D organisation VTT to begin testing the driverless cars in the capital region between July and August.

Finnish IT services company Tieto will receive a license to test its automatic vehicles in August. Other trials will begin in Tampere in September.

Metropolia will pilot the use of mini electric buses in Helsinki, Espoo and Tampere. The buses were previously taken out for trial runs during the Vantaa housing fair last year.

VTT and Tieto will test the functionality of automatic passenger cars in capital region traffic. In Tampere the cars will be put through their paces as part of Tampere’s UrbanAutoTest project.